The complementarity principle in biological and social structures
Complementarity is an epistemological principle derived from the subject-object or observer-system dichotomy, where each side requires a separate mode of description that is formally incompatible with and irreducible to the other, and where one mode of description alone does not provide comprehensive explanatory power. The classical physics paradigm, on which biological, social and psychological sciences are modeled, completely suppresses the observer or subject side of this dichotomy in order to claim unity and consistency in theory and objectivity in experimental observations. Quantum mechanical measurements have shown this paradigm to be untenable. Explanation of events requires both an objective, causal representation and a subjective, prescriptive representation that are complementary. The concepts of description and function in biological systems, and goals and policies in social systems, are found to have the same epistemological basis as the concept of measurement in physics. The concepts of rate-dependent and rate-independent processes are proposed as a necessary distinction for applying the principle of complementarity to explanations of physical, biological and social systems
Tired of waiting for the promised OP on Moderation from keiths.
I am hoping participants in the “Teleology and Biology” thread might find this paper interesting.
It is the epistemological argument that I wish to develop in this paper. What I shall attempt to show is that explanatory knowledge of biological and social systems—from cells to human societies—requires the simultaneous articulation of two, formally incompatible, modes of description. The source of this requirement lies in the subject-object duality, or the distinction between the image and the event,the knower and the known, the genotype and phenotype, the program and the hardware, or the policy and the implementation, however one may choose to express this basic distinction. The essence of the concept of complementarity is not in the recognition of this subject-object distinction, which is common to almost all epistemologies, but in the apparently paradoxical articulation of the two modes of knowing.
Conclusion:
Explanatory theories of biological and social systems are presently limited by the classical paradigm of explanation that requires unified, consistent, objective models. This paradigm is derived from the physical sciences of the last century. An epistemology that explicitly recognizes the individual as an intentional agent in all observation and control processes was forced upon physics only with the formulation of quantum theory, but the generality of this subject-object dualism has never been adequately recognized in the normal thinking of biological, behavioral or social scientists. The greatest difficulty with the concept of complementarity, besides the fact that it is not now a generally acceptable paradigm, is that its formulation and application have not been developed in a broader context than quantum theory where, unfortunately, the epistemological problems of measurement are still not clearly resolved. A second difficulty is that complementarity is an explanatory principle having to do more with the inner consistency of models of observational situations rather than simple simulations that predict results. It is now only an epistemological principle, not a practical engineering principle. Its acceptance in quantum mechanics only came about because of the failure of every other interpretation. This may also be the only hope of its incorporation into biological and social theories.
The way the first paragraph defines complementarity makes it sound similar to mathematical duality.
I have not yet read the full article. However, I’ll note that I have often criticized the “knowledge = justified true belief” characterization of knowledge. I see knowledge and belief as complimentary to one another, rather than different names for the same sort of thing. And, looked at that way, it would be similar to a mathematical duality.
His profile is pretty similar to a former supervisor of mine. Physics then ‘systems science’ or ‘systems thinking.’
I worked at an institute of mathematics and applied systems. Specifically, my work was on ‘social systems’. To be short, these ‘systems’ people can be pretty cultish.
Why don’t you say something about why you posted this, why it interests you, Mung? And what you think it has to do with IDism, which we all know is your current self-determining ideology. I’ve had quite enough of physicists enacting ‘principles’ that they think apply to ‘social systems’ when in fact they know very little about sociology, psychology, anthropology, economics, politics, religion or philology.
“Wow – ‘biosemiotics’ is cool!” Biology ‘complements’ semiotics (just like informatics ‘complements’ theistic OoL). But there are far more biosemioticians who reject IDism than who even come close to accepting or promoting it. That’s your dark IDist shadow hovering over the conversation space, Mung. Certainly, since you are an IDist, that isn’t a ‘compliment’.
I get the impression that most IDers don’t want to commit to a position as that position will eventually have evidence found for or against it. And given history….
No IDer seems to want to commit to what a “body-plan” actually is, despite being quite sure that they are unavailable without intelligent guidance. I could go on.
So don’t hold your breath to find out what Mung thinks this has to do with ID. That would require taking and defending a position and they don’t do that.
I applaud Mung for coming here.
I assume he’s doing his best to raise important questions.
He doesn’t seem to be doing anything of the kind.
But we’ll see…
Pedant,
I don’t see why that’s such a problem.
The zootype and the phylotypic stage
The vertebrate phylotypic stage …
No, you really don’t do you? You’ve dropped a link – so what.
If that’s what you call taking a position then it’s no wonder that ID is going nowhere. No wonder that your efforts are not helping.
To make it as simple as I can, as obviously that’s the level you need it spoon-fed to you at, name a “body plan” that ID claims required intelligent intervention to form. Bonus points for explaining how you know that also. But a score over zero is the goal here Mung.
Mung –
You’d probably like Nagel’s 1986 book The View From Nowhere:
RB, reading the editorial reviews, I probably would.
What is the citation for this paper (and is there a link)? Thanks.
OK, never mind. I found it. Very confusing paper. Apparently endorses a “principle” that it cannot enunciate (or define, etc.). I guess it’s Tractarian in that sense, but I don’t think the author is suggesting that the principle is something that can be shown but not said.
Have just skimmed it, but it seems kind of a scattershot mess to my own biased eyes. I generally like philosophy to go slowly and carefully: that’s obviously not this author’s thing.
It’s worth noting that this paper is almost 40 years old. Its references “the” interpretation of QM are long out of date.
Today, decohorence is involved in most approaches to interpreting QM. Dechorence claims that the classical world will emerge from the quantum world by any interaction of a quantum system with its evnironment, even by encounters with stray photons of the Cosmic Background Radition. Further, that emergence will not have a sharp boundary. Finally, certain everyday physics variables, like position and momentum, are a “preferred basis” for the resulting emerged objects and that helps to explain why everyday objects have the properties they have.
Now, to be fair, decoherence is widely accepted as having those results, but not universally accepted. Nor does it solves all the issues of interpreting QM. But to the extent that Pattee’s arguments depend on the 1970s view of QM and Bohr’s complementary principle, they are at risk.